Monday, October 1, 2012

Ambition and Avarice: RPGs I Like

TAKE THE BODY TO THE BUCKET
So we hit the first real room- the first one with a door closed anyway. We make
our Sneak dungeon throws and fail them miserably because we’re first level and
it is me the Knight and my pal the Orc Savage up at the front of the marching
order. When we listen at the door we can hear the sound of something being knocked
over and baddies getting ready for us. We throw the door open and see three
Orcs with crossbows standing behind a table they’ve tipped over as a barrier.
The Savage opts to try to shut the door and rolls a 1 for initiative. The Orcs
shoot him. The GM rolls.

Three natural 20’s pop up on my screen in Tabletop Forge.

And I’m having a blast.

I’ll leave off the other stories from that evening, the Manticore, the Cultist
Conversion attempt, and the weird collusion of the cursed sword and gravity
trap that resulted in blood pudding. But I’m going to come out and admit that I
didn’t quite get the allure of Old-School gaming until that evening. A good
part of it was the excellent company, but as much came from the simplicity of
the rules we were using, the beta version of Greg Christopher’s new free rpg, Ambition
and Avarice.

GREED IS GOOD?

“You may be used to playing the “good guy” who makes the world a better
place for the innocent. That is not one of those games. Your character is a
rough and dangerous adventurer. They are looking for fame and fortune, not
heroic exploits in the service of noble causes. There is a lot of treasure out
there in the world and you aim to make it yours. Anyone who obstructs that
dream had better stand aside or face your wrath.”

I’ve reviewed a number of Christopher’s other free rpgs- Cascade Failure, Errant,
and Novarium.
Many of his previous games have had a strong central premise and backstory.
Both CF and Novarium offer settings I could easily see running in. On
the other hand, A&A gives a more open-ended approach, but with a real sense
of tone. You’ll eking out a living, trying to get by as adventures. You’re
dropping down into the dungeons, ruins, or whatnot and hoping to balance wealth
gathering against the hospitalar bills when you get back. It’s one degree away
from being a Fiasco set-up. Unlike his earlier fantasy rpg, Errant,
A&A isn’t worried about all experiences in the setting. This is built for
dungeon crawling- and built simply for it. Those are the aspects of the game it
want to know about. Yes, you could go back to town or whatever, but who cares
about that. You’re in the catacombs so you want to know what skills you can
bring to bear on that, how you feed yourself, and how much loot you can
actually carry.

PRESENTATION
The actual version I’m looking at is the free Public Betatest 1.0 available now
over on RPGNow. The download includes the 60-page rulebook, two versions of the
character sheet- one fillable, and a batch of ten pre-gens. The booklet itself
is a simplified version of the eventual rules> Christopher hopes people will
read through and provide feedback. He’s already provided a couple of updates-
one of the nice features of putting things out via RPG Now/DriveThru rpg. The
two-column layout’s clean and excellent, and the spot illustrations throughout
work well. For this version the author chose to use half-pages, making for a
smaller presentation.

CONTENTSSet-Up and Overview: This first section sets up the basic
purposes of the game: every adventurer for themselves dungeon crawling and the
ability to use existing materials easily. It then lays out the basic mechanics
for the system. Saving Throws, Attribute, Tests, and x in 6 chance tests. One
innovation here is the idea of “Dungeon Throws” essentially dungeon skill test
covering climb, locks, lore, notice, sneak and traps. I like having that
built-in as a clear default for all PCs.

Character Creation: The next big section, pages 6-27, covers
making a character. There’s a simple checklist at the start showing the few
basic steps necessary. The game uses rolled 3d6 classic attributes (Str, Dex,
etc) with each score offering a bonus which can modify rolls. Different stats
have different effect so having a decent score can be helpful even if it isn’t
your character’s forte. Players next choose one of the ten races from civilized
(Dwarf, Elf, Gnome, Halfling, Human) and uncivilized (Dark Elf, Goblin,
Hobgoblin, Lizardfolk, and Orc). Each has a distinct set of small benefits and
a particular hit die. I like having choices without going too crazy. Poor
interactions between the races are left up to the Judge, so you don’t have to
play that out. I also like that there’s no alignment system- instead I picture
all of the PC’s as Neutral Desperate.

Next players pick from one of the ten classes, mundane (Knave, Knight, Ranger,
Robber, and Savage) or magical (Conjurer, Cultist, Priest, Shaman, or
Sorcerer).Each class has an expertise- something only they can do. The Knight
has Honor, which allows them to ransom captured opponents. The Shaman can go
into a trace. Each also has something they’re good at identifying- like the
Conjurer knows symbols and the Ranger reads tracks. Each class has their own
profession, weapon proficiencies, and dungeon throws. I got a huge kick out of
these- when I went to make a standard fight, I had to make a tough choice. I
like having some flavor built into the professions. The Cultist especially, a
worshipper of a little god who wants to get bigger, is especially inspired.

Money and Equipment: As befitting a game where you’re trying to
accumulate stuff, there’s a chunky section on possessions. The simple and clear
weapons & armor charts put the pinch on the players right away. Good
equipment costs money and can weigh a lot. It has been so long since I had to
worry about this, I’d forgotten that tension. We’ve been handling those things
abstractly for so long that trying to pick my adventuring gear was a huge
challenge. These were the only things I would have on me for the dungeon. If I
had too much weight, I wouldn’t be able to pick up loot. But what if I needed
that pot (iron)?

Adventures: The book covers pretty much all of the rules you need
in pages 40-49. Everything’s handled simply and with efficiency. There’s little
chrome or flourish, the right approach for a game like this. It covers
encounters, NPC morale, attacks, damage, hazards, survival, retainers, and
experience. The rules are solid and clear.

Magic: The book finishes up with magic spells. As this is a
betatest, it only includes the first level spells. These work as you expect
from other games. Casters can be spontaneous or memorizers, with the latter
having some additional hurdles to face. Casters must declare what spell they’re
readying before initiative is rolled- a detail I like. They also have to make
gestures and speak to cast, but can take damage to bypass those requirements.
The rules present 33 spells, with each casting type having access to ten of
those. The spell descriptions are minimal as they should be. I like the mix of
spells chosen- some reflecting classic D&D and a few new twists.

OVERALL
I can’t really render a final judgment on this- Ambition and Avarice is
a beta document, but one I really enjoy as it is presented right now. I would
like to see- perhaps- more material in later versions considering that struggle
between the players and the “greed” aspect of the game. That could be quite
fun- especially if we had some interesting secondary rewards for having been an
effective looter. But I’m also torn about that. I think you have two directions
you can take this game. One plays up those ideas and perhaps adds some
sub-systems. At that point it could become a little more split competitive
co-op game. I certainly don’t what a dungeon-based Paranoia game. The other
approach is to make this a simple and fast universal adaptor for dungeon
modules. That’s also appealing and one of the design goals of the game from the
start.

This is what I want out of a game like this: simple, fast, familiar, and
adaptable. There are a number of really interesting games like this out there-
some OSR (Dungeon Crawl Classics) and others more new school (Dungeon
World). They’re interesting and offer cool play options. However, A&A
actually hits my buttons. I want a game that looks enough like D&D or d20
that I can hand people a character sheet and we just start going. No rules
explanation necessary, just get to rolling. I also don’t want a thick rules
set. I don’t care about the frills. That may not work for every group, but I
have an older gamer squad who’ve moved to simpler games over the years. If we
do a dungeon one shot, they want the feel without the crunch. A&A also
makes it exceptionally easy to pick up an older module and just start going
with that. That’s also something I really want out of this kind of game. I
should be able to yank my copy of C1: The
Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan off the shelf and run from there. That’s a
design goal of A&A and at least at this early stage, it does a good job of
it.

I look forward to seeing the revised versions of Ambition and Avarice.
If it keeps on track and focuses on that singular purpose, it could be a great
game and an excellent system our group could easily fall back to.